DePauw will host the sixth annual meeting of the Indiana Physiology Society on Saturday, Feb. 27, bringing together high school students, postdoctoral students and faculty from across Indiana. The event will be held from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., with oral presentations taking place in Thompson Recital Hall in the Green Center for Performing Arts and poster sessions being held in the Julian Science Center Atrium. Those in attendance will present on topics from "Differential Lectin Binding and Coronary Angiography in Zebrafish and Giant danio” to the effects of diet-induced obesity and everywhere in between.
“The Indiana Physiology Society’s mission is to promote the increase of physiological knowledge, its dissemination and its utilization in the state of Indiana,” said Biology Professor Pascal Lafontant, who is one of the society’s Counselors and the event organizer this year. “Our theme for this year is: ‘From Molecules to Organisms.’”
This will mark DePauw's first time hosting the annual meeting. Attendance is expected to be around 150. In the past, the Indiana Physiology Society’s daylong conference was held at institutions such as Indiana University and Marian University. This year, however, Lafontant, along with Dr. Laura Michael, a researcher at Eli Lilly and Company and a DePauw graduate, believed it was time for DePauw to host the event.
“It is an opportunity for us to showcase the many excellent programs we have here for undergraduate, starting with the opportunities undergraduate students have to do research with excellent faculty,” Lafontant said. “It is also an opportunity for our faculty colleagues and potential students to learn about the research infrastructure that has been built up at DePauw over the years.”
Indeed, several DePauw students and one professor are presenting on at the meeting. Senior Julia Roell will be orally presenting “Zebrafish as a Model of Corneal Repair,” junior Luke Hartline will be presenting a poster entitled “Development and Optimization of Anti-Cancer Agents” and sophomore Thomas Shelton will present a poster entitled “Differential Lectin Binding and Coronary Angiography in Zebrafish and Giant danio.” Chemistry and Biochemistry Professor Dan Gurnon is presenting a poster entitled “The Rare Genomics Institute enables insight into rare diseases through genome sequencing and cloud collaboration.”